Dynamic generation of processes in computing environments

ABSTRACT

Workflows to be used in managing a computing environment are dynamically and programmatically created and/or activities are invoked, based on the current state of the environment. In creating a workflow, activities are conditionally included in the workflow based on the state of the environment. Different types of workflows may be created.

TECHNICAL FIELD

This invention relates, in general, to managing customer environments toprovide support for business resiliency, and in particular, todynamically generating workflows to be used in the managing.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Today, customers attempt to manually manage and align their availabilitymanagement with their information technology (IT) infrastructure.Changes in either business needs or the underlying infrastructure areoften not captured in a timely manner and require considerable rework,leading to an inflexible environment.

Often high availability solutions and disaster recovery technologies arehandled via a number of disparate point products that target specificscopes of failure, platforms or applications. Integrating thesesolutions into an end-to-end solution is a complex task left to thecustomer, with results being either proprietary and very specific, orunsuccessful.

Customers do not have the tools and infrastructure in place to customizetheir availability management infrastructure to respond to failures in away that allows for a more graceful degradation of their environments.As a result, more drastic and costly actions may be taken (such as asite switch) when other options (such as disabling a set of applicationsor users) could have been offered, depending on business needs.

Coordination across availability management and other systems managementdisciplines is either nonexistent or accomplished via non-reusable,proprietary, custom technology.

There is little predictability as to whether the desired recoveryobjective will be achieved, prior to time of failure. There are onlymanual, labor intensive techniques to connect recovery actions with thebusiness impact of failures and degradations.

Any change in the underlying application, technologies, businessrecovery objectives, resources or their interrelationships require amanual assessment of impact to the hand-crafted recovery scheme.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

Based on the foregoing, a need exists for a capability to facilitatemanagement of an IT environment. In particular, a need exists for acapability that enables programmatic generation of workflows useful inmanaging the environment.

The shortcomings of the prior art are overcome and additional advantagesare provided through the provision of a computer-implemented method thatincludes, for instance, determining that a workflow is to be created fora computing environment; and programmatically creating, based on acurrent state of the computing environment, the workflow.

Computer program products and systems relating to one or more aspects ofthe present invention are also described and claimed herein.

Additional features and advantages are realized through the techniquesof the present invention. Other embodiments and aspects of the inventionare described in detail herein and are considered a part of the claimedinvention.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

One or more aspects of the present invention are particularly pointedout and distinctly claimed as examples in the claims at the conclusionof the specification. The foregoing and other objects, features, andadvantages of the invention are apparent from the following detaileddescription taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings inwhich:

FIG. 1 depicts one embodiment of a processing environment to incorporateand use one or more aspects of the present invention;

FIG. 2 depicts another embodiment of a processing environment toincorporate and use one or more aspects of the present invention;

FIG. 3 depicts yet a further embodiment of a processing environment toincorporate and use one or more aspects of the present invention;

FIG. 4 depicts one embodiment of a Business Resilience System used inaccordance with an aspect of the present invention;

FIG. 5A depicts one example of a screen display of a business resilienceperspective, in accordance with an aspect of the present invention;

FIG. 5B depicts one example of a screen display of a Recovery Segment,in accordance with an aspect of the present invention;

FIG. 6A depicts one example of a notification view indicating aplurality of notifications, in accordance with an aspect of the presentinvention;

FIG. 6B depicts one example of a notification message sent to a user, inaccordance with an aspect of the present invention;

FIG. 7 depicts one example of a Recovery Segment of the BusinessResilience System of FIG. 4, in accordance with an aspect of the presentinvention;

FIG. 8A depicts examples of key Recovery Time Objective properties for aparticular resource, in accordance with an aspect of the presentinvention;

FIG. 8B depicts one example in which Recovery Time Objective propertiescollectively form an observation of a Pattern System Environment, inaccordance with an aspect of the present invention;

FIG. 9 depicts one embodiment of the logic to dynamically build aworkflow, in accordance with an aspect of the present invention;

FIG. 10 depicts one embodiment of the logic associated with postactivity processing, in accordance with an aspect of the presentinvention; and

FIG. 11 depicts one embodiment of a computer program productincorporating one or more aspects of the present invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

In managing a customer's environment, such as its business environment,there is a set of requirements unaddressed by existing technology, whichcauses unpredictable down time, large impact failures and recoveries,and significant extra labor cost, with resulting loss of businessrevenue. These requirements include, for instance:

-   -   1. Ensuring that there is a consistent recovery scheme across        the environment, linked to the business application, across the        different types of resources; not a different methodology        performed by platform silo. The recovery is to match the scope        of the business application, not limited in scope to a single        platform. The recovery is to be end-to-end and allow for        interaction across multiple vendor products. In one example, a        business application is defined as a process that is supported        by IT services. It is supportive of the products and/or services        created by a customer. It can be of fine granularity (e.g., a        specific service/product provided) or of coarse granularity        (e.g., a group of services/products provided).    -   2. Ability to group together mixed resource types (servers,        storage, applications, subsystems, network, etc.) into logical        groupings aligned with business processes requirements for        availability.    -   3. Ability to share resources across logical groups of        resources; ability to nest these logical group definitions, with        specifications for goal policy accepted and implemented at each        level.    -   4. Pre-specified recommendations for resource groupings, with        customization possible, and pattern matching customer        configuration with vendor or customer provided        groupings/relationships—to avoid requiring customers to start        from scratch for definitions.    -   5. Ability to group together redundant resources with functional        equivalence—use during validation when customer has less        redundancy than required to meet the Recovery Time Objective        (RTO) goal; in recovery to select an alternate resource for one        that has failed.    -   6. Ability to configure the definition of what constitutes        available, degraded, or unavailable based on customer's own        sensitivity for a given grouping of resources, and business        needs, and further aggregate the state across various resources        to produce an overall state for the business application. The        state is to be assessed real time, based on what is actually        occurring in the system at the time, rather than fixed        definitions. In some cases, a performance slowdown might flag a        degraded environment, and in other cases, a failure may be        necessary before flagging a degraded or unavailable environment.        The definitions of available, degraded and unavailable are to be        consumed by an availability system that evaluates them in the        context of a policy, and then determines appropriate action,        including possibly launching recovery automatically.    -   7. Ability to relate the redundancy capability of relevant        resources to the availability status of a business application.    -   8. Allow customers to configure when recovery actions can be        delegated to lower level resources, particularly since resource        sharing is becoming more relevant in many customer environments.    -   9. Include customer or vendor best practices for availability as        prespecified workflows, expressed in a standards based manner,        that can be customized.    -   10. Ability to specify quantitative business goals for the        recovery of logical groupings of resources, effecting both how        the resources are pre-configured for recovery, as well as        recovered during errors. One such quantitative goal is Recovery        Time Objective (RTO). As part of the specification of        quantitative business goals, to be able to include time bias of        applications, and facilitate the encoding of appropriate        regulatory requirements for handling of certain workloads during        changing business cycles in selected businesses, such as        financial services.    -   11. Decomposition of the overall quantified RTO goal to nested        logical groups; processing for shared groups having different        goals.    -   12. Ability to configure redundancy groupings and co-location        requirements with resources from other vendors, using a        representation for resources (which may be, for example,        standards based), with ability to clearly identify the vendor as        part of the resource definition.    -   13. Ability to use customer's own historical system measures to        automatically generate various system environments, then use        these system environments when specifying quantitative recovery        goals (since recovery time achievability and requirements are        not consistent across time of day, business cycle, etc.). The        function is to be able to incorporate historical information        from dependent resources, as part of the automatic generation of        system environments.    -   14. Specification of statistical thresholds for acceptability of        using historical information; customer specification directly of        expected operation times and directive to use customer specified        values.    -   15. Environments are matched to IT operations and time of day,        with automatic processing under a new system environment at time        boundaries—no automatic internal adjustment of RTO is to be        allowed, rather changed if the customer has specified that a        different RTO is needed for different system environments.    -   16. Goal Validation—Prior to failure time. Ability to see        assessment of achievable recovery time, in, for instance, a        Gantt chart like manner, detailing what is achievable for each        resource and taking into account overlaps of recovery sequences,        and differentiating by system environment. Specific use can be        during risk assessments, management requests for additional        recovery related resources, mitigation plans for where there are        potentials for RTO miss. Example customer questions:        -   What is my expected recovery time for a given application            during “end of month close” system environment?        -   What is the longest component of that recovery time?        -   Can I expect to achieve the desired RTO during the “market            open” for stock exchange or financial services applications?        -   What would be the optimal sequence and parallelization of            recovery for the resources used by my business application?    -   17. Ability to prepare the environment to meet the desired        quantitative business goals, allowing for tradeoffs when shared        resources are involved. Ensure that both automated and        non-automated tasks can be incorporated into the        pre-conditioning. Example of customer question: What would I        need to do for pre-conditioning my system to support the RTO        goal I need to achieve for this business application?    -   18. Ability to incorporate operations from any vendors'        resources for pre-conditioning or recovery workflows, including        specification of which pre-conditioning operations have effect        on recoveries, which operations have dependencies on others,        either within vendor resources or across resources from multiple        vendors.    -   19. Customer ability to modify pre-conditioning workflows,        consistent with supported operations on resources.    -   20. Ability to undo pre-conditioning actions taken, when there        is a failure to complete a transactionally consistent set of        pre-conditioning actions; recognize the failure, show customers        the optional workflow to undo the actions taken, allow them to        decide preferred technique for reacting to the failure—manual        intervention, running undo set of operations, combination of        both, etc.    -   21. Ability to divide pre-conditioning work between long running        and immediate, nondisruptive short term actions.    -   22. Impact only the smallest set of resources required during        recovery, to avoid negative residual or side effects for        attempting to recover a broader set of resources than what is        actually impacted by the failure.    -   23. Choosing recovery operations based on determination of which        recovery actions address the minimal impact, to meet goal, and        then prepare for subsequent escalation in event of failure of        initial recovery actions.    -   24. Choosing a target for applications and operating systems        (OS), based on customer co-location specifications, redundancy        groups, and realtime system state.    -   25. Ability for customer to indicate specific effect that        recovery of a given business process can have on another        business process—to avoid situations where lower priority        workloads are recovered causing disruption to higher priority        workloads; handling situations where resources are shared.    -   26. Ability to prioritize ongoing recovery processing over        configuration changes to an availability system, and over any        other administration functions required for the availability        system.    -   27. Ability for recoveries and pre-conditioning actions to run        as entire transactions so that partial results are appropriately        accounted for and backed out or compensated, based on actual        effect (e.g., during recovery time or even pre-conditioning, not        all actions may succeed, so need to preserve a consistent        environment).    -   28. Allow for possible non-responsive resources or underlying        infrastructure that does not have known maximum delays in        response time in determining recovery actions, while not going        beyond the allotted recovery time.    -   29. Allow customer to change quantified business recovery        goals/targets without disruption to the existing recovery        capability, with appropriate labeling of version of the policy        to facilitate interaction with change management systems.    -   30. Allow customers to change logical groupings of resources        that have assigned recovery goals, without disruption to the        existing recovery capability, with changes versioned to        facilitate interaction with change management systems.    -   31. Ability to specify customizable human tasks, with time        specifications that can be incorporated into the goal        achievement validation so customers can understand the full time        involved for a recovery and where focusing on IT and people time        is critical to reducing RTO.    -   32. There is a requirement/desire to implement dynamically        modified redundancy groupings for those resources which are high        volume—automatic inclusion based on a specified set of        characteristics and a matching criteria.    -   33. There is a requirement/desire to automatically add/delete        resources from the logical resource groupings for sets of        resources that are not needing individual assessment.

The above set of requirements is addressed, however, by a BusinessResiliency (BR) Management System, of which one or more aspects of thepresent invention are included. The Business Resiliency ManagementSystem provides, for instance:

-   -   1. Rapid identification of fault scope.        -   Correlation and identification of dependencies between            business functions and the supporting IT resources.        -   Impact analysis of failures affecting business functions,            across resources used within the business functions,            including the applications and data.        -   Isolation of failure scope to smallest set of resources, to            ensure that any disruptive recovery actions effect only the            necessary resources.    -   2. Rapid granular and graceful degradation of IT service.        -   Discontinuation of services based on business priorities.        -   Selection of alternate resources at various levels may            include selection of hardware, application software, data,            etc.        -   Notifications to allow applications to tailor or reduce            service consumption during times of availability            constraints.    -   3. Integration of availability management with normal business        operations and other core business processes.        -   Policy controls for availability and planned            reconfiguration, aligned with business objectives.        -   Encapsulation, integration of isolated point solutions into            availability IT fabric, through identification of affected            resources and operations initiated by the solutions, as well            as business resiliency.        -   Goal based policy support, associated with Recovery Segments            that may be overlapped or nested in scope.        -   Derivation of data currency requirements, based on business            availability goals.

One goal of the BR system is to allow customers to align theirsupporting information technology systems with their business goals forhandling failures of various scopes, and to offer a continuum ofrecovery services from finer grained process failures to broader scopedsite outages. The BR system is built around the idea of identifying thecomponents that constitute a business function, and identifyingsuccessive levels of recovery that lead to more complex constructs asthe solution evolves. The various recovery options are connected by anoverall BR management capability that is driven by policy controls.

Various characteristics of one embodiment of a BR system include:

-   -   1. Capability for dynamic generation of recovery actions, into a        programmatic and manageable entity.    -   2. Dynamic generation of configuration changes required/desired        to support a customer defined Recovery Time Objective (RTO)        goal.    -   3. Dynamic definition of key Pattern System Environments (PSEs)        through statistical analysis of historical observations.    -   4. Validation of whether requested RTO goals are achievable,        based on observed historical snapshots of outages or customer        specified recovery operation time duration, in the context of        key Pattern System Environments.    -   5. BR system dynamic, automatic generation and use of standards        based Business Process Execution Language (BPEL) workflows to        specify recovery transactions and allow for customer integration        through workflow authoring tools.    -   6. Ability to configure customized scopes of recovery, based on        topologies of resources and their relationships, called Recovery        Segments (RSs).    -   7. Best practice workflows for configuration and recovery,        including, but not limited to, those for different resource        types: servers, storage, network, and middleware, as examples.    -   8. Ability to customize the definition of available, degraded,        unavailable states for Recovery Segments.    -   9. Ability to represent customers' recommended configurations        via best practice templates.    -   10. Ability to define the impact that recovery of one business        application is allowed to have on other business applications.    -   11. Ability to correlate errors from the same or multiple        resources into related outages and perform root cause analysis        prior to initiating recovery actions.    -   12. Quantified policy driven, goal oriented management of        unplanned outages.    -   13. Groupings of IT resources that have associated, consistent        recovery policy and recovery actions, classified as Recovery        Segments.    -   14. Handling of situations where the underlying error detection        and notifications system itself is unavailable.

A Business Resilience System is capable of being incorporated in andused by many types of environments. One example of a processingenvironment to incorporate and use aspects of a BR system, including oneor more aspects of the present invention, is described with reference toFIG. 1.

Processing environment 100 includes, for instance, a central processingunit (CPU) 102 coupled to memory 104 and executing an operating system106. Examples of operating systems include AIX® and z/OS®, offered byInternational Business Machines Corporation; Linux; etc. AIX® and z/OS®are registered trademarks of International Business MachinesCorporation, Armonk, N.Y., U.S.A. Other names used herein may beregistered trademarks, trademarks or product names of InternationalBusiness Machines Corporation or other companies.

The operating system manages execution of a Business Resilience RuntimeComponent 108 of a Business Resilience System, described herein, and oneor more applications 110 of an application container 112.

As examples, processing environment 100 includes an IBM System z™processor or a pSeries® server offered by International BusinessMachines Corporation; a Linux server; or other servers, processors, etc.Processing environment 100 may include more, less and/or differentcomponents than described herein. (pSeries® is a registered trademark ofInternational Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, N.Y., USA.)

Another example of a processing environment to incorporate and useaspects of a BR System, including one or more aspects of the presentinvention, is described with reference to FIG. 2.

As shown, a processing environment 200 includes for instance, a centralprocessing complex 202 coupled to an input/output (I/O) subsystem 204.Central processing complex 202 includes, for instance, a centralprocessing unit 206, memory 208, an operating system 210, a databasemanagement system 212, a Business Resilience Runtime Component 214, anapplication container 216 including one or more applications 218, and anI/O facility 220.

I/O facility 220 couples central processing complex 202 to I/O subsystem204 via, for example, a dynamic switch 230. Dynamic switch 230 iscoupled to a control unit 232, which is further coupled to one or moreI/O devices 234, such as one or more direct access storage devices(DASD).

Processing environments 100 and/or 200 may include, in otherembodiments, more, less and/or different components.

In yet another embodiment, a central processing complex 300 (FIG. 3)further includes a network service 302, which is used to couple acentral processing complex 300 to a processing environment 304 via anetwork subsystem 306.

For example, network service 302 of central processing complex 300 iscoupled to a switch 308 of network subsystem 306. Switch 308 is coupledto a switch 310 via routers 312 and firewalls 314. Switch 310 is furthercoupled to a network service 316 of processing environment 304.

Processing environment 304 further includes, for instance, a centralprocessing unit 320, a memory 322, an operating system 324, and anapplication container 326 including one or more applications 328. Inother embodiments, it can include more, less and/or differentcomponents.

Moreover, CPC 300 further includes, in one embodiment, a centralprocessing unit 330, a memory 332, an operating system 334, a databasemanagement system 336, a Business Resilience Runtime Component 338, anapplication container 340 including one or more applications 342, and anI/O facility 344. It also may include more, less and/or differentcomponents.

I/O facility 344 is coupled to a dynamic switch 346 of an I/O subsystem347. Dynamic switch 346 is further coupled to a control unit 348, whichis coupled to one or more I/O devices 350.

Although examples of various environments are provided herein, these areonly examples. Many variations to the above environments are possibleand are considered within the scope of the present invention.

In the above-described environments, a Business Resilience RuntimeComponent of a Business Resilience System is included. Further detailsassociated with a Business Resilience Runtime Component and a BusinessResilience System are described with reference to FIG. 4.

In one example, a Business Resilience System 400 is a component thatrepresents the management of recovery operations and configurationsacross an IT environment. Within that Business Resilience System, thereis a Business Resilience Runtime Component (402) that represents themanagement functionality across multiple distinct Recovery Segments, andprovides the service level automation and the support of creation of therecovery sequences. In addition, there are user interface (404),administration (406), installation (408) and configuration template(410) components within the Business Resilience System that enable theadministrative operations that are to be performed. Each of thesecomponents is described in further detail below.

Business Resilience Runtime Component 402 includes a plurality ofcomponents of the BR System that are directly responsible for thecollection of observations, creation of PSEs, policy acceptance,validation, error detection, and formulation of recovery sequences. Asone example, Business Resilience Runtime Component 402 includes thefollowing components:

-   -   1. One or more Business Resilience Managers (BRM) (412).        -   The Business Resilience Manager (BRM) is the primary            component containing logic to detect potential errors in the            IT environment, perform assessment to find resources causing            errors, and formulate recovery sequences to reestablish the            desired state for resources for all Recovery Segments that            may be impacted.        -   The Business Resilience Manager is a component of which            there can be one or more. It manages a set of Recovery            Segments, and has primary responsibility to formulate            recovery sequences. The association of which Recovery            Segments are managed by a given BRM is determined at            deployment time by the customer, with the help of deployment            time templates. BRMs are primarily responsible for            operations that relate to error handling and recovery            workflow generation, and cross RS interaction.    -   2. One or more Recovery Segments (RS) (414).        -   Recovery Segments are customer-defined groupings of IT            resources to which consistent availability policy is            assigned. In other words, a Recovery Segment acts as a            context within which resource recovery is performed. In many            cases, Recovery Segments are compositions of IT resources            that constitute logical entities, such as a middleware and            its related physical resources, or an “application” and its            related components.        -   There is no presumed granularity of a Recovery Segment.            Customers can choose to specify fine-grained Recovery            Segments, such as one for a given operating system, or a            coarser grained Recovery Segment associated with a business            process and its component parts, or even a site, as            examples.        -   Relationships between IT resources associated with a RS are            those which are part of the IT topology.        -   Recovery Segments can be nested or overlapped. In case of            overlapping Recovery Segments, there can be policy            associated with each RS, and during policy validation,            conflicting definitions are reconciled. Runtime assessment            is also used for policy tradeoff.        -   The Recovery Segment has operations which support policy            expression, validation, decomposition, and assessment of            state.        -   The number of Recovery Segments supported by a BR System can            vary, depending on customer configurations and business            needs.        -   One BRM can manage multiple Recovery Segments, but a given            RS is managed by a single BRM. Further, Recovery Segments            that share resources, or are subset/superset of other            Recovery Segments are managed by the same BRM, in this            example. Multiple BRMs can exist in the environment,            depending on performance, availability, and/or            maintainability characteristics.    -   3. Pattern System Environments (PSEs) (416).        -   Pattern System Environments (PSEs) are representations of a            customer's environment. Sets of observations are clustered            together using available mathematical tooling to generate            the PSEs. In one embodiment, the generation of a PSE is            automatic. A PSE is associated with a given RS, but a PSE            may include information that crosses RSs.        -   As one example, the representation is programmatic in that            it is contained within a structure from which information            can be added/extracted.    -   4. Quantified Recovery Goal (418).        -   A quantified recovery goal, such as a Recovery Time            Objective (RTO), is specified for each Recovery Segment that            a customer creates. If customers have multiple Pattern            System Environments (PSEs), a unique RTO for each PSE            associated with the RS may be specified.    -   5. Containment Region (CR) (420).        -   Containment Region(s) are components of the BR System which            are used at runtime to reflect the scope and impact of an            outage. A Containment Region includes, for instance,            identification for a set of impacted resources, as well as            BR specific information about the failure/degraded state, as            well as proposed recovery. CRs are associated with a set of            impacted resources, and are dynamically constructed by BR in            assessing the error.        -   The original resources reporting degraded availability, as            well as the resources related to those reporting degraded            availability, are identified as part of the Containment            Region. Impacted resources are accumulated into the topology            by traversing the IT relationships and inspecting the            attributes defined to the relationships. The Containment            Region is transitioned to an inactive state after a            successful recovery workflow has completed, and after all            information (or a selected subset in another example) about            the CR has been logged.    -   6. Redundancy Groups (RG) (422).        -   Redundancy Group(s) (422) are components of the BR System            that represent sets of logically equivalent services that            can be used as alternates when a resource experiences            failure or degradation. For example, three instances of a            database may form a redundancy group, if an application            server requires connectivity to one of the set of three, but            does not specify one specific instance.        -   There can be zero or more Redundancy Groups in a BR System.        -   Redundancy Groups also have an associated state that is            maintained in realtime, and can contribute to the definition            of what constitutes available, degraded, or unavailable            states. In addition, Redundancy Groups members are            dynamically and automatically selected by the BR System,            based on availability of the member and co-location            constraints.    -   7. BR Manager Data Table (BRMD) (424).        -   BR maintains specific internal information related to            various resources it manages and each entry in the BR            specific Management Data (BRMD) table represents such a            record of management. Entries in the BRMD represent IT            resources.    -   8. BR Manager Relationship Data Table (BRRD) (426).        -   BR maintains BR specific internal information related to the            pairings of resources it needs to interact with, and each            entry in the BR specific Relationship Data (BRRD) table            represents an instance of such a pairing. The pairing record            identifies the resources that participate in the pairing,            and resources can be any of those that appear in the BRMD            above. The BRRD includes information about the pairings,            which include operation ordering across resources, failure            and degradation impact across resources, constraint            specifications for allowable recovery actions, effect an            operation has on resource state, requirements for resource            to co-locate or anti-co-locate, and effects of preparatory            actions on resources.    -   9. BR Asynchronous Distributor (BRAD) (428).        -   The BR Asynchronous Distributor (BRAD) is used to handle            asynchronous behavior during time critical queries for            resource state and key properties, recovery, and for getting            observations back from resources for the observation log.    -   10. Observation Log (430).        -   The Observation Log captures the information that is            returned through periodic observations of the environment.            The information in the Observation Log is used by cluster            tooling to generate Pattern System Environments (PSE).    -   11. RS Activity Log (432).        -   Each RS has an activity log that represents the RS actions,            successes, failures. Activity logs are internal BR            structures. Primarily, they are used for either problem            determination purposes or at runtime, recovery of failed BR            components. For example, when the RS fails and recovers, it            reads the Activity Log to understand what was in progress at            time of failure, and what needs to be handled in terms of            residuals.    -   12. BRM Activity Log (434).        -   The BRM also has an activity log that represents BRM            actions, success, failures. Activity logs are internal BR            structures.    -   13. Transaction Table (TT) (436).        -   The transaction table is a serialization mechanism used to            house the counts of ongoing recovery and preparatory            operations. It is associated with the RS, and is referred to            as the RS TT.

In addition to the Business Resilience Runtime Component of the BRsystem, the BR system includes the following components, previouslymentioned above.

User Interface (UI) Component (404).

-   -   The User interface component is, for instance, a graphical        environment through which the customer's IT staff can make        changes to the BR configuration. As examples: create and manage        Recovery Segments; specify recovery goals; validate        achievability of goals prior to failure time; view and alter BR        generated workflows.    -   The user interface (UI) is used as the primary interface for        configuring BR. It targets roles normally associated with a        Business Analyst, Solution Architect, System Architect, or        Enterprise Architect, as examples.    -   One purpose of the BR UI is to configure the BR resources. It        allows the user to create BR artifacts that are used for a        working BR runtime and also monitors the behaviors and        notifications of these BR resources as they run. In addition,        the BR UI allows interaction with resources in the environment        through, for instance, relationships and their surfaced        properties and operations. The user can add resources to BR to        affect recovery and behaviors of the runtime environment.    -   The BR UI also surfaces recommendations and best practices in        the form of templates. These are reusable constructs that        present a best practice to the user which can then be approved        and realized by the user.    -   Interaction with the BR UI is based on the typical editor save        lifecycle used within, for instance, the developmental tool        known as Eclipse (available and described at www.Eclipse.org).        The user typically opens or edits an existing resource, makes        modifications, and those modifications are not persisted back to        the resource until the user saves the editor.    -   Predefined window layouts in Eclipse are called perspectives.        Eclipse views and editors are displayed in accordance with the        perspective's layout, which can be customized by the user. The        BR UI provides a layout as exemplified in the screen display        depicted in FIG. 5A.    -   Screen display 500 depicted in FIG. 5A displays one example of a        Business Resilience Perspective. Starting in the upper left        corner and rotating clockwise, the user interface includes, for        instance:        -   1. Business Resilience View 502            -   This is where the user launches topologies and                definition templates for viewing and editing.        -   2. Topology/Definition Template Editor 504            -   This is where editors are launched from the Business                Resilience View display. The user can have any number of                editors open at one time.        -   3. Properties View/Topology Resources View/Search View            -   The property and topology resource views are driven off                the active editor. They display information on the                currently selected resource and allow the user to modify                settings within the editor.        -   4. Outline View 508            -   This view provides a small thumbnail of the topology or                template being displayed in the editor. The user can pan                around the editor quickly by moving the thumbnail.    -   The topology is reflected by a RS, as shown in the screen        display of FIG. 5B. In FIG. 5B, a Recovery Segment 550 is        depicted, along with a list of one or more topology resources        552 of the RS (not necessarily shown in the current view of the        RS).    -   In one example, the BR UI is created on the Eclipse Rich Client        Platform (RCP), meaning it has complete control over the Eclipse        environment, window layouts, and overall behavior. This allows        BR to tailor the Eclipse platform and remove Eclipse artifacts        not directly relevant to the BR UI application, allowing the        user to remain focused, while improving usability.    -   BR extends the basic user interface of Eclipse by creating        software packages called “plugins’ that plug into the core        Eclipse platform architecture to extend its capabilities. By        implementing the UI as a set of standard Eclipse plug-ins, BR        has the flexibility to plug into Eclipse, WebSphere Integration        Developer, or Rational product installs, as examples. The UI        includes two categories of plug-ins, those that are BR specific        and those that are specific to processing resources in the IT        environment. This separation allows the resource plug-ins to be        potentially re-used by other products.    -   By building upon Eclipse, BR has the option to leverage other        tooling being developed for Eclipse. This is most apparent in        its usage of BPEL workflow tooling, but the following packages        and capabilities are also being leveraged, in one embodiment, as        well:        -   The Eclipse platform provides two graphical toolkit            packages, GEF and Draw2D, which are used by BR, in one            example, to render topology displays and handle the rather            advanced topology layouts and animations. These packages are            built into the base Eclipse platform and provide the            foundation for much of the tooling and topology user            interfaces provided by this design.        -   The Eclipse platform allows building of advanced editors and            forms, which are being leveraged for BR policy and template            editing. Much of the common support needed for editors, from            the common save lifecycle to undo and redo support, is            provided by Eclipse.        -   The Eclipse platform provides a sophisticated Welcome and            Help system, which helps introduce and helps users to get            started configuring their environment. Likewise, Eclipse            provides a pluggable capability to create task instructions,            which can be followed step-by-step by the user to accomplish            common or difficult tasks.

BR Admin Mailbox (406) (FIG. 4).

-   -   The BR Admin (or Administrative) Mailbox is a mechanism used by        various flows of the BR runtime to get requests to an        administrator to take some action. The Admin mailbox        periodically retrieves information from a table, where BR keeps        an up-to-date state.    -   As an example, the Admin Mailbox defines a mechanism where BR        can notify the user of important events needing user attention        or at least user awareness. The notifications are stored in the        BR database so they can be recorded while the UI is not running        and then shown to the user during their next session.    -   The notifications are presented to the user, in one example, in        their own Eclipse view, which is sorted by date timestamp to        bubble the most recent notifications to the top. An example of        this view is shown in FIG. 6A. As shown, a view 600 is presented        that includes messages 602 relating to resources 604. A date        timestamp 606 is also included therewith.    -   Double clicking a notification opens an editor on the        corresponding resource within the BR UI, which surfaces the        available properties and operations the user may need to handle        the notification.    -   The user is able to configure the UI to notify them whenever a        notification exceeding a certain severity is encountered. The UI        then alerts 650 the user of the notification and message when it        comes in, as shown in FIG. 6B, in one example.    -   When alerted, the user can choose to open the corresponding        resource directly. If the user selects No, the user can revisit        the message or resource by using the above notification log        view.

BR Install Logic (408) (FIG. 4).

-   -   The BR Install logic initializes the environment through        accessing the set of preconfigured template information and        vendor provided tables containing resource and relationship        information, then applying any customizations initiated by the        user.

Availability Configuration Templates (410):

-   -   Recovery Segment Templates        -   The BR System has a set of Recovery Segment templates which            represent common patterns of resources and relationships.            These are patterns matched with each individual customer            environment to produce recommendations for RS definitions to            the customer, and offer these visually for customization or            acceptance.    -   Redundancy Group Templates        -   The BR System has a set of Redundancy Group templates which            represent common patterns of forming groups of redundant            resources. These are optionally selected and pattern matched            with each individual customer environment to produce            recommendations for RG definitions to a customer.    -   BR Manager Deployment Templates        -   The BR System has a set of BR Manager Deployment templates            which represent recommended configurations for deploying the            BR Manager, its related Recovery Segments, and the related            BR management components. There are choices for distribution            or consolidation of these components. Best practice            information is combined with optimal availability and            performance characteristics to recommend a configuration,            which can then be subsequently accepted or altered by the            customer.    -   Pairing Templates        -   The BR System has a set of Pairing Templates used to            represent best practice information about which resources            are related to each other.

The user interface, admin mailbox, install logic and/or templatecomponents can be part of the same computing unit executing BR Runtimeor executed on one or more other distributed computing units.

To further understand the use of some of the above components and theirinterrelationships, the following example is offered. This example isonly offered for clarification purposes and is not meant to be limitingin any way.

Referring to FIG. 7, a Recovery Segment RS 700 is depicted. It isassumed for this Recovery Segment that:

-   -   The Recovery Segment RS has been defined associated with an        instantiated and deployed BR Manager for monitoring and        management.    -   Relationships have been established between the Recovery Segment        RS and the constituent resources 702 a-702 m.    -   A goal policy has been defined and validated for the Recovery        Segment through interactions with the BR UI.    -   The following impact pairings have been assigned to the        resources and relationships:

Rule Resource #1 State Resource #2 State 1 App-A Degraded RS Degraded 2App-A Unavailable RS Unavailable 3 DB2 Degraded CICS Unavailable 4 CICSUnavailable App-A Unavailable 5 CICS Degraded App-A Degraded 6OSStorage-1 Unavailable CICS Degraded 7 OSStorage-1 Unavailable StorageCopy Set Degraded 8 DB2 User & Log Data Degraded DB2 Degraded 9OSStorage-2 Unavailable DB2 User & Log Data Degraded 10 z/OS UnavailableCICS Unavailable 11 z/OS Unavailable DB2 Unavailable 12 Storage Copy SetDegraded CICS User & Log Data Degraded 13 Storage Copy Set Degraded DB2User & Log Data Degraded

-   -   The rules in the above table correspond to the numbers in the        figure. For instance, #12 (704) corresponds to Rule 12 above.    -   Observation mode for the resources in the Recovery Segment has        been initiated either by the customer or as a result of policy        validation.    -   The environment has been prepared as a result of that goal        policy via policy validation and the possible creation and        execution of a preparatory workflow.    -   The goal policy has been activated for monitoring by BR.

As a result of these conditions leading up to runtime, the followingsubscriptions have already taken place:

-   -   The BRM has subscribed to runtime state change events for the        RS.    -   RS has subscribed to state change events for the constituent        resources.

These steps highlight one example of an error detection process:

-   -   The OSStorage-1 resource 702 h fails (goes Unavailable).    -   RS gets notified of state change event.    -   1st level state aggregation determines:        -   Copy Set→Degraded        -   CICS User & Log Data→Degraded        -   DB2 User & Log Data→Degraded        -   DB2→Degraded        -   CICS→Unavailable        -   App-A→Unavailable    -   1st level state aggregation determines:        -   RS→Unavailable    -   BRM gets notified of RS state change. Creates the following        Containment Region:

Resource Reason OSStorage-1 Unavailable Storage Copy Set Degraded CICSUser & Log Data Degraded DB2 User & Log Data Degraded DB2 Degraded App-AUnavailable CICS Unavailable RS Unavailable

-   -   Creates a recovery workflow based on the following resources:

Resource State OSStorage-1 Unavailable Storage Copy Set Degraded CICSUser & Log Data Degraded DB2 User & Log Data Degraded DB2 Degraded App-AUnavailable CICS Unavailable RS Unavailable

In addition to the above, BR includes a set of design points that helpin the understanding of the system. These design points include, forinstance:

Goal Policy Support

BR is targeted towards goal based policies—the customer configures histarget availability goal, and BR determines the preparatory actions andrecovery actions to achieve that goal (e.g., automatically).

Availability management of the IT infrastructure through goal basedpolicy is introduced by this design. The BR system includes the abilityto author and associate goal based availability policy with the resourceRecovery Segments described herein. In addition, support is provided todecompose the goal policy into configuration settings, preparatoryactions and runtime procedures in order to execute against the deployedavailability goal. In one implementation of the BR system, the RecoveryTime Objective (RTO—time to recover post outage) is a supported goalpolicy. Additional goal policies of data currency (e.g., Recovery PointObjective) and downtime maximums, as well as others, can also beimplemented with the BR system. Recovery Segments provide the contextfor association of goal based availability policies, and are the scopefor goal policy expression supported in the BR design. The BR systemmanages the RTO through an understanding of historical information,metrics, recovery time formulas (if available), and actions that affectthe recovery time for IT resources.

RTO goals are specified by the customer at a Recovery Segment level andapportioned to the various component resources grouped within the RS. Inone example, RTO goals are expressed as units of time intervals, such asseconds, minutes, and hours. Each RS can have one RTO goal per PatternSystem Environment associated with the RS. Based on the metricsavailable from the IT resources, and based on observed history and/ordata from the customer, the RTO goal associated with the RS is evaluatedfor achievability, taking into account which resources are able to berecovered in parallel.

Based on the RTO for the RS, a set of preparatory actions expressed as aworkflow is generated. This preparatory workflow configures theenvironment or makes alterations in the current configuration, toachieve the RTO goal or to attempt to achieve the goal.

In terms of optimizing RTO, there are tradeoffs associated with thechoices that are possible for preparatory and recovery actions.Optimization of recovery choice is performed by BR, and may includeinteraction at various levels of sophistication with IT resources. Insome cases, BR may set specific configuration parameters that aresurfaced by the IT resource to align with the stated RTO. In othercases, BR may request that an IT resource itself alter its managementfunctions to achieve some portion of the overall RS RTO. In either case,BR aligns availability management of the IT resources contained in theRS with the stated RTO.

Metrics and Goal Association

In this design, as one example, there is an approach to collecting therequired or desired metrics data, both observed and key varying factors,system profile information that is slow or non-moving, as well aspotential formulas that reflect a specific resource's use of the keyfactors in assessing and performing recovery and preparatory actions,historical data and system information. The information and raw metricsthat BR uses to perform analysis and RTO projections are expressed aspart of the IT resources, as resource properties. BR specificinterpretations and results of statistical analysis of key factorscorrelated to recovery time are kept as BR Specific Management data(BRMD).

Relationships Used by BR, and BR Specific Resource Pairing Information

BR maintains specific information about the BR management of eachresource pairing or relationship between resources. Informationregarding the BR specific data for a resource pairing is kept by BR,including information such as ordering of operations across resources,impact assessment information, operation effect on availability state,constraint analysis of actions to be performed, effects of preparatoryactions on resources, and requirements for resources to co-locate oranti-co-locate.

Evaluation of Failure Scope

One feature of the BR function is the ability to identify the scope andimpact of a failure. The BR design uses a Containment Region to identifythe resources affected by an incident. The Containment Region isinitially formed with a fairly tight restriction on the scope of impact,but is expanded on receiving errors related to the first incident. Theimpact and scope of the failure is evaluated by traversing the resourcerelationships, evaluating information on BR specific resource pairinginformation, and determining most current state of the resourcesimpacted.

Generation and Use of Workflow

Various types of preparatory and recovery processes are formulated andin some cases, optionally initiated. Workflows used by BR aredynamically generated based on, for instance, customer requirements forRTO goal, based on actual scope of failure, and based on anyconfiguration settings customers have set for the BR system.

A workflow includes one or more operations to be performed, such asStart CICS, etc. Each operation takes time to execute and this amount oftime is learned based on execution of the workflows, based on historicaldata in the observation log or from customer specification of executiontime for operations. The workflows formalize, in a machine readable,machine editable form, the operations to be performed.

In one example, the processes are generated into Business ProcessExecution Language (BPEL) compliant workflows with activities that areoperations on IT resources or specified manual, human activities. Forexample, BRM automatically generates the workflows in BPEL. Thisautomatic generation includes invoking routines to insert activities tobuild the workflow, or forming the activities and building the XML(Extensible Mark-Up Language). Since these workflows are BPEL standardcompliant, they can be integrated with other BPEL defined workflowswhich may incorporate manual activities performed by the operationsstaff. These BR related workflows are categorized as follows, in oneexample:

-   -   Preparatory—Steps taken during the policy prepare phase in        support of a given goal, such as the setting of specific        configuration values, or the propagation of availability related        policy on finer grained resources in the Recovery Segment        composition. BR generates preparatory workflows, for instance,        dynamically. Examples of preparatory actions include setting up        storage replication, and starting additional instances of        middleware subsystems to support redundancy.    -   Recovery—Steps taken as a result of fault detection during        runtime monitoring of the environment, such as, for example,        restarting a failed operating system (OS). BR generates recovery        workflows dynamically, in one example, based on the actual        failure rather than a prespecified sequence.    -   Preventive—Steps taken to contain or fence an error condition        and prevent the situation from escalating to a more substantial        outage or impact; for example, the severing of a failed        resource's relationship instances to other resources. Preventive        workflows are also dynamically generated, in one example.    -   Return—Steps taken to restore the environment back to ‘normal        operations’ post recovery, also represented as dynamically        generated workflows, as one example.

Capturing of Workflow Information

Since the set of BR actions described above modify existing ITenvironments, visibility to the actions that are taken by BR prior tothe actual execution is provided. To gain trust in the decisions andrecommendations produced by BR, the BR System can run in ‘advisorymode’. As part of advisory mode, the possible actions that would betaken are constructed into a workflow, similar to what would be done toactually execute the processes. The workflows are then made visiblethrough standard workflow authoring tooling for customers to inspect ormodify. Examples of BPEL tooling include:

-   -   Bolie, et al., BPEL Cookbook: Best Practices for SOA-based        Integration and Composite Applications Development,        ISBN1904811337, 2006, PACKT Publishing, hereby incorporated        herein by reference in its entirety;    -   Juric, et al., Business Process Execution Language for Web        Services: BPEL and BPEL YWS, ISBN 1-904811-18-3, 2004, PACKT        Publishing, hereby incorporated herein by reference in its        entirety.    -   http://www-306.ibm.com/software/integration/wid/about/?S_CMP=rnav    -   http://www.eclipse.org/bpel/    -   http://www.parasoft.com/jsp/products/home        jsp;jessionid=aaa56iqFywA-HJ?product=BPEL&redname=googbpelm&referred=searchengine        %2Fgoogle % Fbpel

Tooling Lifecycle, Support of Managed Resources and Roles

BR tooling spans the availability management lifecycle from definitionof business objectives, IT resource selection, availability policyauthoring and deployment, development and deployment of runtimemonitors, etc. In one example, support for the following is captured inthe tooling environment for the BR system:

-   -   Visual presentation of the IT resources & their relationships,        within both an operations and administration context.    -   Configuration and deployment of Recovery Segments and BRMs.    -   Authoring and deployment of a BR policy.    -   Modification of availability configuration or policy changes for        BR.    -   BPEL tooling to support viewing of BR created, as well as        customer authored, workflows.    -   BPEL tooling to support monitoring of workflow status, related        to an operations console view of IT resource operational state.

Policy Lifecycle

The policy lifecycle for BR goal policies, such as RTO goals, includes,for example:

-   -   Define—Policy is specified to a RS, but no action is taken by        the BRM to support the policy (observation information may be        obtained).    -   Validate—Policy is validated for syntax, capability, etc.;        preparatory workflow created for viewing and validation by        customer.    -   Prepare—Preparatory action workflows are optionally executed.    -   Activate—Policy is activated for runtime monitoring of the        environment.    -   Modify—Policy is changed dynamically in runtime.

Configurable State Aggregation

One of the points in determining operational state of a Recovery Segmentis that this design allows for customers to configure a definition ofspecific ‘aggregated’ states, using properties of individual ITresources. A Recovery Segment is an availability management context, inone example, which may include a diverse set of IT resources.

The customer may provide the rules logic used within the RecoverySegment to consume the relevant IT resource properties and determine theoverall state of the RS (available, degraded and unavailable, etc). Thecustomer can develop and deploy these rules as part of the RecoverySegment availability policy. For example, if there is a databaseincluded in the Recovery Segment, along with the supporting operatingsystem, storage, and network resources, a customer may configure one setof rules that requires that the database must have completed therecovery of in-flight work in order to consider the overall RecoverySegment available. As another example, customers may choose to configurea definition of availability based on transaction rate metrics for adatabase, so that if the rate falls below some value, the RS isconsidered unavailable or degraded, and evaluation of ‘failure’ impactwill be triggered within the BR system. Using these configurations,customers can tailor both the definitions of availability, as well asthe rapidity with which problems are detected, since any IT resourceproperty can be used as input to the aggregation, not just theoperational state of IT resources.

Failure During Workflow Sequences of Preparatory, Recovery, Preventive

Failures occurring during sequences of operations executed within a BPELcompliant process workflow are intended to be handled through use ofBPEL declared compensation actions, associated with the workflowactivities that took a failure. The BR System creates associated “undo”workflows that are then submitted to compensate, and reset theenvironment to a stable state, based on where in the workflow thefailure occurred.

Customer Values

The following set of customer values, as examples, are derived from theBR system functions described above, listed here with supportingtechnologies from the BR system:

-   -   Align total IT runtime environment to business function        availability objectives:        -   RS definition from representation of IT Resources;        -   Goal (RTO) and action policy specification, validation and            activation; and        -   Tooling by Eclipse, as an example, to integrate with IT            process management.    -   Rapid, flexible, administrative level:        -   Alteration of operation escalation rules;        -   Customization of workflows for preparatory and recovery to            customer goals;        -   Customization of IT resource selection from RG based on            quality of service (QoS);        -   Alteration of definition of IT resource and business            application state (available, degraded, or unavailable);        -   Customization of aggregated state;        -   Modification of topology for RS and RG definition;        -   Selection of BR deployment configuration;        -   Alteration of IT resource recovery metrics;        -   Customization of generated Pattern System Environments; and        -   Specification of statistical tolerances required for system            environment formation or recovery metric usage.    -   Extensible framework for customer and vendor resources:        -   IT resource definitions not specific to BR System; and        -   Industry standard specification of workflows, using, for            instance, BPEL standards.    -   Adaptive to configuration changes and optimization:        -   IT resource lifecycle and relationships dynamically            maintained;        -   System event infrastructure utilized for linkage of IT            resource and BR management;        -   IT resource recovery metrics identified and collected;        -   IT resource recovery metrics used in forming Pattern System            Environments;        -   Learned recovery process effectiveness applied to successive            recovery events;        -   System provided measurement of eventing infrastructure            timing;        -   Dynamic formation of time intervals for aggregation of            related availability events to a root cause; and        -   Distribution of achieved recovery time over constituent            resources.    -   Incremental adoption and coexistence with other availability        offerings:        -   Potential conflict of multiple managers for a resource based            on IT representation;        -   Workflows for recovery and preparatory reflect operations            with meta data linked to existing operations;        -   Advisory mode execution for preparatory and recovery            workflows; and        -   Incremental inclusion of resources of multiple types.    -   Support for resource sharing:        -   Overlapping and contained RS;        -   Merger of CR across RS and escalation of failure scope; and        -   Preparatory and recovery workflows built to stringency            requirements over multiple RS.    -   Extensible formalization of best practices based on industry        standards:        -   Templates and patterns for RS and RG definition;        -   Preparatory and recovery workflows (e.g., BPEL) for            customization, adoption; and        -   Industry standard workflow specifications enabling            integration across customer and multiple vendors.    -   Integration of business resilience with normal runtime        operations and IT process automation:        -   Option to base on IT system wide, open industry standard            representation of resources;        -   BR infrastructure used for localized recovery within a            system, cluster and across sites; and        -   Utilization of common system infrastructure for events,            resource discovery, workflow processing, visualization.

Management of the IT environment is adaptively performed, as describedherein and in a U.S. patent application “Adaptive Business ResiliencyComputer System for Information Technology Environments,”(POU920070364US1), Bobak et al., co-filed herewith, which is herebyincorporated herein by reference in its entirety.

Many different sequences of activities can be undertaken in creating aBR environment. The following represents one possible sequence; however,many other sequences are possible. This sequence is provided merely tofacilitate an understanding of a BR system and one or more aspects ofthe present invention. This sequence is not meant to be limiting in anyway. In the following description, reference is made to various U.S.patent applications, which are co-filed herewith.

On receiving the BR and related product offerings, an installationprocess is undertaken. Subsequent to installation of the products, a BRadministrator may define the configuration for BR manager instances withthe aid of BRM configuration templates.

Having defined the BRM configuration a next step could be to defineRecovery Segments as described in “Recovery Segments for ComputerBusiness Applications,” (POU920070108US1), Bobak et al., which is herebyincorporated herein by reference in its entirety.

Definition of a RS may use a representation of resources in a topologygraph as described in “Use of Graphs in Managing ComputingEnvironments,” (POU920070112US1), Bobak et al., which is herebyincorporated herein by reference in its entirety.

It is expected that customers will enable BR operation in “observation”mode for a period of time to gather information regarding key metricsand operation execution duration associated with resources in a RS.

At some point, sufficient observation data will have been gathered or acustomer may have sufficient knowledge of the environment to be managedby BR. A series of activities may then be undertaken to prepare the RSfor availability management by BR. As one example, the following stepsmay be performed iteratively.

A set of functionally equivalent resources may be defined as describedin “Use of Redundancy Groups in Runtime Computer Management of BusinessApplications,” (POU920070113US1), Bobak et al., which is herebyincorporated herein by reference in its entirety.

Specification of the availability state for individual resources,redundancy groups and Recovery Segments may be performed as described in“Use of Multi-Level State Assessment in Computer Business Environments,”(POU920070114US1), Bobak et al., which is hereby incorporated herein byreference in its entirety.

Representations for the IT environment in which BR is to operate may becreated from historical information captured during observation mode, asdescribed in “Computer Pattern System Environment Supporting BusinessResiliency,” (POU920070107US1), Bobak et al., which is herebyincorporated herein by reference in its entirety. These definitionsprovide the context for understanding how long it takes to performoperations which change the configuration—especially during recoveryperiods.

Information on relationships between resources may be specified based onrecommended best practices—expressed in templates—or based on customerknowledge of their IT environment as described in “Conditional ComputerRuntime Control of an Information Technology Environment Based onPairing Constructs,” (POU920070110US1), Bobak et al., which is herebyincorporated herein by reference in its entirety. Pairing processingprovides the mechanism for reflecting required or desired order ofexecution for operations, the impact of state change for one resource onanother, the effect execution of an operation is expected to have on aresource state, desire to have one subsystem located on the same systemas another and the effect an operation has on preparing the environmentfor availability management.

With preliminary definitions in place, a next activity of the BRadministrator might be to define the goals for availability of thebusiness application represented by a Recovery Segment as described in“Programmatic Validation in an Information Technology Environment,”(POU920070111US1), Bobak et al., which is hereby incorporated herein byreference in its entirety.

Managing the IT environment to meet availability goals includes havingthe BR system prioritize internal operations. The mechanism utilized toachieve the prioritization is described in “Serialization in ComputerManagement,” (POU920070105US1), Bobak et al., which is herebyincorporated herein by reference in its entirety.

Multiple operations are performed to prepare an IT environment to meet abusiness application's availability goal or to perform recovery when afailure occurs. The BR system creates workflows to achieve the requiredor desired ordering of operations, as described herein, in accordancewith one or more aspects of the present invention.

A next activity in achieving a BR environment might be execution of theordered set of operations used to prepare the IT environment, asdescribed in “Dynamic Selection of Actions in an Information TechnologyEnvironment,” (POU920070117US1), Bobak et al., which is herebyincorporated herein by reference in its entirety.

Management by BR to achieve availability goals may be initiated, whichmay initiate or continue monitoring of resources to detect changes intheir operational state, as described in “Real-Time InformationTechnology Environments,” (POU920070120US1), Bobak et al., which ishereby incorporated herein by reference in its entirety. Monitoring ofresources may have already been initiated as a result of “observation”mode processing.

Changes in resource or redundancy group state may result in impactingthe availability of a business application represented by a RecoverySegment. Analysis of the environment following an error is performed.The analysis allows sufficient time for related errors to be reported,insures gathering of resource state completes in a timely manner andinsures sufficient time is provided for building and executing therecovery operations—all within the recovery time goal, as described in“Management Based on Computer Dynamically Adjusted Discrete Phases ofEvent Correlation,” (POU920070119US1), Bobak et al., which is herebyincorporated herein by reference in its entirety.

A mechanism is provided for determining if events impacting theavailability of the IT environment are related, and if so, aggregatingthe failures to optimally scope the outage, as described in “Managementof Computer Events in a Computer Environment,” (POU920070118US1), Bobaket al., which is hereby incorporated herein by reference in itsentirety.

Ideally, current resource state can be gathered after scoping of afailure. However, provisions are made to insure management to theavailability goal is achievable in the presence of non-responsivecomponents in the IT environment, as described in “Managing the ComputerCollection of Information in an Information Technology Environment,”(POU920070121US1), Bobak et al., which is hereby incorporated herein byreference in its entirety.

With the outage scoped and current resource state evaluated, the BRenvironment can formulate an optimized recovery set of operations tomeet the availability goal, as described in “Defining a ComputerRecovery Process that Matches the Scope of Outage,” (POU920070124US1),Bobak et al., which is hereby incorporated herein by reference in itsentirety.

Formulation of a recovery plan is to uphold customer specificationregarding the impact recovery operations can have between differentbusiness applications, as described in “Managing Execution Within aComputing Environment,” (POU920070115US1), Bobak et al., which is herebyincorporated herein by reference in its entirety.

Varying levels of recovery capability exist with resources used tosupport a business application. Some resources possess the ability toperform detailed recovery actions while others do not. For resourcescapable of performing recovery operations, the BR system provides fordelegation of recovery if the resource is not shared by two or morebusiness applications, as described in “Conditional Actions Based onRuntime Conditions of a Computer System Environment,” (POU920070116US1),Bobak et al., which is hereby incorporated herein by reference in itsentirety.

Having evaluated the outage and formulated a set of recovery operations,the BR system resumes monitoring for subsequent changes to the ITenvironment.

In support of mainline BR system operation, there are a number ofactivities including, for instance:

-   -   Coordination for administrative task that employ multiple steps,        as described in “Adaptive Computer Sequencing of Actions,”        (POU920070106US1), Bobak et al., which is hereby incorporated        herein by reference in its entirety.    -   Use of provided templates representing best practices in        defining the BR system, as described in “Defining and Using        Templates in Configuring Information Technology Environments,”        (POU920070109US1), Bobak et al., which is hereby incorporated        herein by reference in its entirety.    -   Use of provided templates in formulation of workflows, as        described in “Using Templates in a Computing Environment,”        (POU920070126US1), Bobak et al., which is hereby incorporated        herein by reference in its entirety.    -   Making changes to the availability goals while supporting        ongoing BR operation, as described in “Non-Disruptively Changing        a Computing Environment,” (POU920070122US1), Bobak et al., which        is hereby incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.    -   Making changes to the scope of a business application or        Recovery Segment, as described in “Non-Disruptively Changing        Scope of Computer Business Applications Based on Detected        Changes in Topology,” (POU920070125US1), Bobak et al., which is        hereby incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.    -   Detecting and recovery for the BR system is performed        non-disruptively, as described in “Managing Processing of a        Computing Environment During Failures of the Environment,”        (POU920070365US1), Bobak et al., which is hereby incorporated        herein in its entirety.

In order to build a BR environment that meets recovery time objectives,IT configurations within a customer's location are to be characterizedand knowledge about the duration of execution for recovery timeoperations within those configurations is to be gained. ITconfigurations and the durations for operation execution vary by time,constituent resources, quantity and quality of application invocations,as examples. Customer environments vary widely in configuration of ITresources in support of business applications. Understanding thecustomer environment and the duration of operations within thoseenvironments aids in insuring a Recovery Time Objective is achievableand in building workflows to alter the customer configuration of ITresources in advance of a failure and/or when a failure occurs.

A characterization of IT configurations within a customer location isbuilt by having knowledge of the key recovery time characteristics forindividual resources (i.e., the resources that are part of the ITconfiguration being managed; also referred to as managed resources).Utilizing the representation for a resource, a set of key recovery timeobjective (RTO) metrics are specified by the resource owner. Duringongoing operations, the BR manager gathers values for these key RTOmetrics and gathers timings for the operations that are used to alterthe configuration. It is expected that customers will run the BRfunction in “observation” mode prior to having provided a BR policy foravailability management or other management. While executing in“observation” mode, the BR manager periodically gathers RTO metrics andoperation execution durations from resource representations. The key RTOmetrics properties, associated values and operation execution times arerecorded in an Observation log for later analysis through tooling. KeyRTO metrics and operation execution timings continue to be gatheredduring active BR policy management in order to maintain currency anditeratively refine data used to characterize customer IT configurationsand operation timings within those configurations.

Examples of RTO properties and value range information by resource typeare provided in the below table. It will be apparent to those skilled inthe art that additional, less, and/or different resource types,properties and/or value ranges may be provided.

Resource Type Property Value Range Operating System Identifier TextState Ok, stopping, planned stop, stopped, starting, error, lostmonitoring capability, unknown Memory Size Units in MB Number of systemsin sysplex, if integer applicable Last IPL time of day Units in time ofday/clock Type of last IPL Cold, warm, emergency Total Real StorageAvailable Units in MB GRS Star Mode Yes or No Complete IPL time to reachUnits of elapsed time ‘available’ Total CPU using to reach Units ofelapsed time available during IPL Total CPU delay to reach Units ofelapsed time available during IPL Total Memory using to reach Units inMB available during IPL Total Memory delay to reach Units of elapsedtime available during IPL Total i/o requests Integer value, number ofrequests Total i/o using to reach available Units of elapsed time duringIPL Total i/o delay to reach available Units of elapsed time during IPLComputer System (LPAR, Identifier Text Server, etc.) State Ok, stopping,stopped, planned down, starting, error, lost monitoring capability,unknown Type of CPU - model, type, Text value serial Number of CPUsinteger Number of shared processors integer Number of dedicatedprocessors integer Last Activate Time of Day Units in time of day/clockNetwork Components Group of Network Connections Identity OperationalState Ok, Starting, Disconnected, Stopping, Degraded, Unknown State ofeach associated Network Text Application Connection Performance Stats onloss and Complex delays Recovery Time for any Units in elapsed timeassociated application network connections Number of active applicationInteger network connections associated at time of network problemStopped Time/duration for Units in elapsed time group of connectoinsMaximum Network Recovery Units in elapsed time Time for any applicationconnection in group Maximum Number of active Integer connections at timeof network problem encountered, for any application connection in groupMaximum Number of Integer connections processed at time of networkrecovery, for the group of connections Maximum network connection Unitsin elapsed time recovery time/duration for any application connection inthe group Maximum Number of Integer connections dropped at time ofapplication network connection recovery, for any application connectionin the group Network Application Connection Identity Text State Ok,Stopping, Degraded, Error, Unknown Configuration Settings ComplexAssociated TCP/IP Parameter Text Settings Requirement Policies QoS or BRpolicies Performance Statistics, rules, Complex service class, number ofactive Network OS services State update Interval Units of elapsed timeLast restart time of day Units in time of day/clock Last RestartTime/Duration Units in elapsed time Network Recovery Time for app Unitsin elapsed time connection Number of active connections at Integer timeof network problem encountered, on a per app connection basis Number ofconnections Integer processed at time of network recovery, for the appconnection application network connection Units in elapsed time recoverytime/duration Number of connections at time of Integer applicationnetwork connection problem encountered Number of connections Integerprocessed at time of application network connection recovery Number ofconnections dropped Integer at time of application network connectionrecovery Network Host Connection Identity Text State Ok, Stopping,Degraded, Error, Unknown Configuration Settings Complex AssociatedTCP/IP Parameter Text Settings Requirement Policies QoS or BR policiesPerformance Statistics, rules, Complex service class, number of activeNetwork OS services State update Interval Units of elapsed time Lastrestart time of day Units in time of day/clock Last RestartTime/Duration Units in elapsed time Number of QoS Events, Integerindicating potential degradation Number of QoS Events handled, IntegerLast handled QoS Event Text Database Subsystem Name, identifier TextOperational State Operational, Nonoperational, starting, stopping, inrecovery, log suspended, backup initiated, restore initiated, restorecomplete, in checkpoint, checkpoint completed, applying log, backing outinflights, resolving indoubts, planned termination, lost monitoringcapability Time spent in log apply Units of elapsed time Time spentduring inflight Units of elapsed time processing Time spent duringindoubt Units of elapsed time processing Total time to restart Units ofelapsed time Checkpoint frequency Units of time Backout Duration Numberof records to read back in log during restart processing CPU Used duringRestart Units of elapsed time CPU Delay during Restart Units of elapsedtime Memory Used during Restart Units in MB Memory Delay during RestartUnits of elapsed time I/O Requests during restart Integer value ofnumber of requests I/O using during restart Units of elapsed time I/ODelay during restart Units of elapsed time Database Datasharing GroupIdentifer Text Operational State Operational, nonoperational, degraded(some subset of members non operational), lost monitoring capabilityNumber of locks in Shared Integer value Facility Time spent in lockcleanup for Elapsed time value last restart Database Identifier TextTablespace Identifier Text Transaction Region Identifier Text Name TextAssociated job name Text Maximum number of tasks/ Integer value threadsRestart type for next restart Warm, cold, emergency Forward log nameText System log name Text Operational State Operational, nonoperational,in recovery, starting, stop normal first quiesce, stop normal secondquiesce, stop normal third quiesce Time spent in log apply Units ofelapsed time Time during each recovery stage Units of elapsed time Totaltime to restart Units of elapsed time CPU Used during Restart Units ofelapsed time CPU Delay during Restart Units of elapsed time Memory Usedduring Restart Units in MB Memory Delay during Restart Units of elapsedtime I/O Requests during restart Integer value of number of requests I/Oconnect time during restart Units of elapsed time I/O Delay duringrestart Units of elapsed time System Logsize Units in MB Forward LogsizeUnits in MB Activity Keypoint frequency Integer - number of writesbefore activity checkpoint taken Average Transaction Rate for Number oftransactions per this region second, on average Transaction Group Groupname Text Transaction Region File Filename Text Region Name Text DatasetName Text Operational State Operational/enabled, nonoperational/disabledOpen status Open, closed, closing Transaction Identifier TextOperational State Running, failed, shunted, retry in progress RegionName (s) that can run this Text transaction Program Name Text LogicalReplication Group of Identity Text related datasets State Requiredcurrency characteristics Complex for datasets Required consistencyComplex characteristics for datasets Replication Group Identity StateReplication Session Identity State Established, in progress replication,replication successful complete Type of Session Flash copy, metromirror, etc. Duration of last replication Units in elapsed time Time ofDay for last replication Units in time of day/clock Amount of datareplicated at last Units in MB replication Roleset Identity Text StateCopySet Identity Text State Dataset Identity Text State Open, ClosedStorage Group Identity Text State Storage Volume Identity Text StateOnline, offline, boxed, unknown Logical Storage Subsystem Identity TextState Storage Subsystem Identity Text State Subsystem I/O Velocity -ratio of time channels are being used Replication Link (Logical)Identity Text between Logical Subsystems State Operational,nonoperational, degraded redundancy Number of configured pipes IntegerNumber of operational pipes Integer

A specific example of key RTO properties for a z/OS® image is depictedin FIG. 8A. As shown, for a z/OS® image 800, the following propertiesare identified: GRS mode 802, CLPA? (i.e., Was the link pack area pagespace initialized?) 804, I/O bytes moved 806, real memory size 808, #CPs 810, CPU speed 812, and CPU delay 814, as examples.

The z/OS® image has a set of RTO metrics associated therewith, asdescribed above. Other resources may also have its own set of metrics.An example of this is depicted in FIG. 8B, in which a Recovery Segment820 is shown that includes a plurality of resources 822 a-m, each havingits own set of metrics 824 a-m, as indicated by the shading.

Further, in one example, the RTO properties from each of the resourcesthat are part of the Recovery Segment for App A have been gathered by BRand formed into an “observation” for recording to the Observation log,as depicted at 850.

Resources have varying degrees of functionality to support RTO goalpolicy. Such capacity is evaluated by BR, and expressed in resourceproperty RTOGoalCapability in the BRMD entry for the resource. Twooptions for BR to receive information operation execution timings are:use of historical data or use of explicitly customer configured data. IfBR relies on historical data to make recovery time projections, thenbefore a statistically meaningful set of data is collected, thisresource is not capable of supporting goal policy. A mix of resourcescan appear in a given RS—some have a set of observations that allowclassification of the operation execution times, and others areexplicitly configured by the customer.

Calculation of projected recovery time can be accomplished in two ways,depending on customer choice: use of historical observations or use ofcustomers input timings. The following is an example of values for theRTOGoalCapability metadata that is found in the BRMD entry for theresource that indicates this choice:

UseHistoricalObservations The resource has a collection of statisticallymeaningful observations of recovery time, where definition of‘statistically valid’ is provided on a resource basis, as default by BR,but tailorable by customers UseCustomerInputTimings The customer canexplicitly set the operation timings for a resource

If the customer is in observation mode, then historical information iscaptured, regardless of whether the customer has indicated use ofexplicitly input timings or use of historical information.

The administrator can alter, on a resource basis, which set of timingsBR is to use. The default is to use historical observations. Inparticular, a change source of resource timing logic is provided thatalters the source that BR uses to retrieve resource timings. The twooptions for retrieving timings are from observed histories or explicitlyfrom admin defined times for operation execution. The default usesinformation from the observed histories, gathered from periodic polls.If the customer defines times explicitly, the customer can direct BR touse those times for a given resource. If activated, observation modecontinues and captures information, as well as running averages, andstandard deviations. The impact to this logic is to alter the source ofinformation for policy validation and formulation of recovery plan.

With respect to the historical observations, there may be astatistically meaningful set of observations to verify. The sample sizeshould be large enough so that a time range for each operation executioncan be calculated, with a sufficient confidence interval. The acceptablenumber of observations to qualify as statistically meaningful, and thedesired confidence interval are customer configurable using BR UI, butprovided as defaults in the BRMD entry for the resource. The defaultconfidence interval is 95%, in one example.

There are metrics from a resource that are employed by BR to enable andperform goal management. These include, for instance:

Metric Qualification Last observed recovery/restart time Inmilliseconds; or alternately specifying units to use in calculations Thekey factors and associated Captured at last observed recovery time, andcapturable values of the resource that affect at a point in time by BRrecovery time The key factors and associated Captured at last observedrecovery time, and capturable values of the resource that affect at apoint in time by BR other dependent resources' recovery times Observedtime interval from ‘start’ If there are various points in the resourcerecovery state to each ‘non-blocking’ state lifecycle at which itbecomes non-blocking to other resources which depend upon it, then:Observed time interval from ‘start’ state to each ‘non-blocking’ stateResource Consumption Information If the resource can provide informationabout its consumption, or the consumption of dependent resources, on aninterval basis, then BR will use this information in forming PSEs andclassifying timings. One example of this is: cpu, i/o, memory usageinformation that is available from zOS WLM for an aggregation ofprocesses/address spaces over a given interval.

There is also a set of information about the resource that isemployed—this information is provided as defaults in the BRMD entry forthe resource, but provided to the BR team in the form of best practicesinformation/defaults by the domain owners:

-   -   The operational state of the resource at which the observed        recovery time interval started.    -   The operational state of the resource at which the observed        recovery time interval ended.    -   The operational states of the resource at which point it can        unblock dependent resources (example: operational states at        which a DB2 could unblock new work from CICS, at which it could        allow processing of logs for transactions ongoing at time of        failure . . . ).    -   Values of statistical thresholds to indicate sufficient        observations for goal managing the resource (number of        observations, max standard deviations, confidence level).

In addition to the resources defined herein as part of the ITconfiguration that is managed, there are other resources, referred toherein as assessed resources. Assessed resources are present primarilyto provide observation data for PSE formation, and to understandimpact(s) on managed resources. They do not have a decomposed RTOassociated with them nor are they acted on for availability by BR.Assessed resources have the following characteristics, as examples:

-   -   Are present to collect observation data for PSE formation.    -   Are present to understand impacts on managed resources. No        decomposed RTO is associated with an assessed resource.    -   They are resources on which resources managed by BR depend upon,        but are not directly acted on for availability by BR.    -   They are resources removed (or not explicitly added) from the        actively monitored set of resources by the BR admin during RS        definition.    -   They are resources that BR does not try to recover and BR thus        will not invoke any preparatory or recovery operations on them.

Similarly, there are likely scenarios where a resource exists in acustomer environment that already has an alternative availabilitymanagement solution, and does not require BR for its availability.However, since other resources that are managed by BR may be dependenton them, they are observed and assessed in order to collect observationdata and understand their impacts on managed resources. Additionally,there may be resources that do not have alternative managementsolutions, but the customer simply does not want them managed by BR, butother managed resources are dependent upon them. They too are classifiedas assessed resources.

These assessed resources share many of the same characteristics ofmanaged resources, such as, for example:

-   -   They have an entry in the BRMD, depending on their use, and the        BRMD entry has an indication of assessed vs. managed.    -   The RS subscribes to state change notifications for assessed        resources (and possibly other notifiable properties).    -   Relationships between observed and managed resources are        possible (and likely).    -   BR monitors for lifecycle events on assessed resources in the        same manner as for managed resources.    -   Assessed resources can be added and/or removed from Recovery        Segments.    -   They can be used to contribute to the aggregated state of an RS.

Finally, there are a few restrictions that BR imposes upon assessedresources, in this embodiment:

-   -   Again, BR does not invoke any workflow operations on assessed        resources.    -   A resource that is shared between two Recovery Segments is not        categorized as an assessed resource in one RS and a managed        resource in the other. It is one or the other in the RS's, but        not both.

To facilitate the building of the customer's IT configuration,observations regarding the customer's environment are gathered andstored in an observation log. In particular, the observation log is usedto store observations gathered during runtime in customer environments,where each observation is a collection of various data points. They arecreated for each of the Recovery Segments that are in “observation”mode. These observations are used for numerous runtime andadministrative purposes in the BR environment. As examples theobservations are used:

-   -   To perform statistical analysis from the BR UI to form        characterizations of customers' normal execution environments,        represented in BR as Pattern System Environments (PSE).    -   To classify operations on resources into these PSEs for purposes        of determining operation execution duration.    -   Help determine approximate path length of operations that are        pushed down from BR to the resources, and possibly to the        underlying instrumentation of each resource.    -   Help determine approximate path length of activities executed        within BPEL workflows.    -   Finally, the data collected via the observation is also used to        update the metadata associated with the resource (i.e., in the        BRMD table) where appropriate.

BR gathers observations during runtime when “observation mode” isenabled at the Recovery Segment level. There are two means for enablingobservation mode, as examples:

-   -   1. The BR UI allows the administrator to enable observation mode        at a Recovery Segment, which will change its “ObservationMode”        resource property to “True”, and to set the polling interval        (default=15 minutes). The Recovery Segment is defined in order        to allow observation mode, but a policy does not have to be        defined or activated for it.    -   2. Once a policy is defined though and subsequently activated,        observation mode is set for the Recovery Segment (due to the        data being used in managing and monitoring the customer's        environment). Thus, it is set automatically at policy        activation, if not already set explicitly by the administrator        (see 1 above) using the default polling interval (15 minutes).

The administrator may also disable observation mode for a RecoverySegment, which stops it from polling for data and creating subsequentobservation records for insertion in the log. However, the accumulatedobservation log is not deleted. In one example, an RS remains inobservation mode throughout its lifecycle. The UI displays theimplications of disabling observation mode.

In BR, the observations that are collected by BR during runtime can begrouped into two categories, as examples:

-   -   1. Periodic poll.    -   2. Workflow (includes workflow begin/end, and workflow activity        begin/end).

A periodic poll observation is a point-in-time snapshot of theconstituent resources in a Recovery Segment. Observation data points arecollected for those resources in the Recovery Segment(s) which haveassociated BR management data for any of the following reasons, asexamples:

-   -   1. Resource has RTO properties.    -   2. Resource has operations.    -   3. Resource participates in the aggregated state for the        Recovery Segment, in which it is contained.    -   4. Resource participates in any of the six types of pairing        rules.

The full value of these observations is derived for an RS when theyinclude data that has been gathered for its constituent resources, plusthe resources that those are dependent upon. In one embodiment, theadministrator is not forced to include all dependent resources whendefining a Recovery Segment, and even if that were the case, there isnothing that prevents them from deleting various dependent resources.When defining a Recovery Segment, the BR UI provides an option thatallows the customer to display the dependency graph for those resourcesalready in the Recovery Segment. This displays the topology from theseed node(s) in the Recovery Segment down to and including the dependentleaf nodes. The purpose of this capability is to give the customer theopportunity to display the dependent nodes and recommend that they beincluded in the Recovery Segment.

Preparatory and recovery workflows are built by the BR manager toachieve the customer requested RTO policy based on resource operationstimings. During active policy monitoring by the BR manager, measurementsof achieved time for operations are recorded in observations to the logand used to maintain the running statistical data on operation executiontimes. Observations written to the log may vary in the containedresource RTO metrics and operation execution timings.

Observations are also collected from any of the BPEL workflows createdby BR in the customer's environment. There is a standard template thateach BR BPEL workflow uses. As part of that template, observation datais captured at the start of, during, and at the completion of eachworkflow. Specifically, in one example, one observation is created atthe end of the workflow with data accumulated from completion of eachactivity. This information is used to gather timings for workflowexecution for use in creating subsequent workflows at time of failure.

In accordance with an aspect of the present invention, a capability isprovided to dynamically and programmatically generate workflows (a.k.a.,processes).

In today's IT environment, actions taken to configure or manage theenvironment are typically handled by script type languages that have apredefined set of operations, in a specific and predetermined sequence.In other situations, the operations are actually manually initiated bystaff that monitors for completion of each action, assesses the state ofthe IT environment after each action, then decides whether or not toproceed to the next action. These approaches have the followingproblems:

-   -   1. IT configuration and management actions are predetermined and        are not able to adjust to changes in the environment, except        through manual re-specification of the involved scripts.    -   2. Failures of individual steps in the configuration or        management need to be manually handled, and are not managed in        any scope covered by transactional semantics.    -   3. The complete set of affected resources for a business        application needs to be hard-coded into the scripts, and        maintained.    -   4. Since the procedures and scripts are predefined, there is a        potential for affecting a larger scope of resources during        management because the actions are not tailored to the scope of        impact.    -   5. There are disparate techniques to specify configuration and        management actions, and thus, need to be manually reconciled        from platform to platform, from resource to resource.    -   6. Combining programmatic operations with staff operations is        difficult, and is frequently done in large, discrete sets of        steps, rather than interleaving these types of operations in a        coordinated manner.

Summary of Processing

One or more aspect of the present invention provides a capability ofdynamic generation of executable workflows (or processes), which includea coordinated set of operations and staff actions; the steps in theworkflows are created dynamically during various stages of ITmanagement. In one implementation, validating a quantitativeavailability goal can generate a set of recommended actions toprecondition the environment to support the goal, and these actions maybe dynamically formulated into a workflow. In other examples, processingthat handles change of quantitative goal, change of scope for businessapplications, and recovery processing can also dynamically formworkflows.

The following points relate to one or more aspects of the present:

-   -   1. Dynamic generation of IT management workflows.    -   2. IT management workflows with transactional semantics.    -   3. Interleaving programmatic recovery or environment preparatory        operations with staff interaction.    -   4. Workflow activities conditionally executed predicated on        appropriate trigger conditions in the system.    -   5. Conditional execution of activities in a workflow.    -   6. Activities surrounded by pre- and post-routines to detect        completion metrics and success/failure.    -   7. Handling of time related dependencies across operations on        multiple resources.

Dynamic Generation IT Management Workflows

In accordance with an aspect of the present invention, the activitiesthat are incorporated into workflows are not limited to those which arepre-determined by a specific software vendor, or pre-configured by thecustomer. Rather, the workflow is programmatically created duringruntime, dynamically, based on the actual state of the system (e.g.,based on the state of the resources) and on programmatically observedhistories that are captured in the customer environment. This allows formanagement of the IT system that is responsive to changes. As examples,the following types of workflows are generated dynamically:

-   -   1. Preparatory workflow—To prepare the IT environment to support        an availability goal specified for the business application.    -   2. Recovery workflows—To recover from failures or unplanned        unavailability events.    -   3. Undo workflows—To undo the operations that were executed as        part of a failure of a previous workflow, in order to restore        the system to a known, stable state.    -   4. Delta workflows—To re-prepare an environment that was        previously prepared, in order to support changes in goal policy,        or the adding/deleting of resources from business applications.

There are multiple potential techniques for determining the set ofactions that should be part of a workflow. In one implementation ofpreparatory workflows, the scope of the Recovery Segment determines theset of resources which are configured into a preparatory workflow. Inone implementation for recovery workflows, the scope of resourcesimpacted, along with actions that will achieve the desired statedetermines which resources are included in a workflow. In the exampleimplementations, the operations selected for the resources included in aworkflow are also chosen based on selection criteria such as, forinstance: whether the preparatory action will have a desired recoveryaction, ordering of operations, observed timings of recovery actions,failed attempts trying to execute operations, co-location requirements,as well as constraints on what impact one business application may haveon another.

In one embodiment, the dynamic generation of workflows expects as inputthe following:

-   -   A set of ordered operations and resources, including dependent        resources.    -   Indication of which sets of operations can be parallelized, and        expected duration of each operation.    -   An indication of which actions are conditional execution, and        the condition for execution.

In one implementation, the set of input is available through thecombined output of the logic flows described in dependency operationordering and programmatic creation of a Gantt chart, as described in aco-filed U.S. patent application, entitled “Means For Defining andValidating Achievability of Business Application Availability Goals”,(POU920070111US1). However, this invention is not limited to thistechnique for obtaining the input. Any technique is possible. For thisaspect of the present invention, the input is provided. The logic usesthe input information to create a workflow, as described below.

One embodiment of the logic to dynamically and programmatically createan executable workflow is described with reference to FIGS. 9-10. In oneexample, this logic is performed by the BRM.

Referring to FIG. 9 on beginning a workflow invocation, the workflowtype is tested to determine if it is of a type that could be interruptedfor a higher priority workflow, INQUIRY 900. That is, workflows havepriorities associated therewith (e.g., provided by the system, not thecustomer or user) and higher priority workflows may prevent execution ofother workflows. For example, if an active management workflow, such asone for recovering an environment is active, then in one implementation,a workflow that prepares the environment to support a quantifiable goalwould be interrupted/terminated since it has a lower priority.

If the workflow can be interrupted, then a test is made to determine ifsuch a higher priority workflow is in progress currently, INQUIRY 902.If so, the intent to terminate is logged, STEP 904, the workflow isaborted, STEP 906, and processing exits. If either there is no higherpriority workflow in progress, or if this is not a workflow that can beinterrupted, then processing continues to begin construction of theactivities that will be part of the workflow.

In STEP 907, the start time for workflow build is recorded so that thetotal time to build the workflow can be captured. Further, in STEP 908,each operation in the input list is processed. For each operation, adetermination is made as to whether the activity is requested to beconditionally executed, INQUIRY 910. If so, an activity is added to theworkflow to test the trigger conditions provided as input and exit ifnot met, STEP 912. In one implementation, operations that are added to aworkflow can use workflow engine specific interfaces to build theactivities into the workflow using parallelization constructs, joins,etc. In an alternate implementation, a workflow can be constructed fromgenerating the workflow language directly. There are existing knowntechnologies that can be invoked to handle the mechanics of addingsteps/activities to a workflow.

Once the conditional execution activity is inserted into the workflow,or if there are no conditional execution requirements for this activity,another activity is added to the workflow to capture the start of theexecution time for this operation, STEP 914. Then, an activity is addedto the workflow to execute the operation from the input list beingprocessed, STEP 916, based on operation ordering and parallelizationinformation provided. In one implementation, this information can beprovided based on the combined output of the logic flows described inthe above-referenced application or by other means.

Next, a Post_Activity_Set of processing is performed, as described withreference to FIG. 10, STEP 918, and then, the logic advances to the nextoperation in the input list to process, STEP 920. Processing cycles backto STEP 908 until all input activities have been added to the workflow.

At the conclusion of processing, the time for building the workflow iscaptured and returned in STEP 921. Next, an activity is added to theworkflow to return the operation execution times, STEP 922. Examples ofusing the operation execution times are described in, for instance, aU.S. patent application “Computer Pattern System Environment SupportingBusiness Resiliency,” (POU920070107US1), Bobak et al., co-filedherewith, which is hereby incorporated herein by reference in itsentirety, and include, for instance, forming a PSE, etc.

Referring to FIG. 10, in the Post_Activity_Set of processing, again theworkflow is tested to determine whether this is one that can beinterrupted by a higher priority workflow, INQUIRY 1000, and if so,whether there is a higher priority workflow in progress, INQUIRY 1002.If there is a higher priority workflow in progress, then the intent toterminate is logged, STEP 1004, the workflow is aborted, STEP 1006, andprocessing exits. If there is either no higher priority workflow inprogress, or if this workflow cannot be interrupted, then an activity isadded (e.g., via BPEL interfaces or other interfaces) to the workflow tocapture the end of the operation execution time, STEP 1008. Next, anactivity is added to the workflow to save the completion status, STEP1010. Finally, an activity is added to the workflow to test whether thecompletion status saved is successful, and if not, generate an event orsome type of notification so that the submitter of the workflow canhandle the error appropriately, STEP 1012. In one implementation, thesubmitter may be monitoring for completion, and upon failure of aspecific activity, initiate an undo or compensatory workflow to reversethe operations that were actually performed, and to return theenvironment to a known state.

In a further optimization, adding activities to the workflow can combineone or more of these activities to create a longer running activity tocapture execution time, save status and test for completion to generatea notification, rather than adding these individually. In anotheralternate implementation, an unsuccessful completion status can cause anaction to be initiated from the workflow itself, rather than handled viathe submitter.

IT Management Workflows with Transactional Semantics

In today's technology, failures during the process of configuring ormanaging the IT environment frequently result in some manual processthat needs to figure out which steps were successfully executed, wherethere were failures, what the state of the system is on result, andexplicitly take reversal or other manual actions. To facilitate thisprocessing, one or more aspects of the present inventionprogrammatically (i.e., without user intervention) generates workflowswith transaction capability for configuration and management of ITenvironments.

One example of an IT function that can use this aspect of the inventionis that of configuration and management for availability of theresources in the IT environment. Specifically, the availabilitymanagement function can use this aspect of the invention during, forinstance, recovery time processing to dynamically detect failures ofsteps during activities, capture completion codes and initiatecompensation actions. Failures are clearly and programmaticallyidentified according to which step in the workflow failed, and anothercompensatory workflow, the Undo workflow, can be generated to reversethe operations that were executed to the point of failure, in thecontext of the transaction for the workflow. The purpose of the reversalis to get the system to a known state, and not leave the environment ina partially successful state that potentially lacks integrity. Sinceeach inserted activity includes subsequent activities that loginformation and test completion status, only the activities that wereactually executed prior to failure are reversed. In one implementation,an associated set of operations to be included in an undo workflow isgenerated for all workflows, at time of construction of the originalworkflow.

In one implementation, the determination as to whether to run the undoworkflow is handled by logic that is monitoring the progress of thesubmitted workflow, rather than automatically initiated by the workflowitself. In other implementations, the undo workflow can be initiatedfrom the original workflow, if desired. For example, in the case ofpreparatory workflows, the completion status of an activity is saved,and if there is an unsuccessful activity for an operation, then thatcode is returned to the logic that monitors the submitted prepareworkflow, and that logic determines whether an undo workflow is to bebuilt from the undo operations list and submitted for execution.

Interleaving Programmatic Recovery or Environment Preparatory Operationswith Staff Interaction

Management of IT resources during runtime can involve a set of humaninteractions that are to be considered as part of the steps that areused during these activities. The logic described in FIG. 9 can befurther extended to specify activities which involve human actions,similar to any other activity (as one example of STEP 916).

These staff type operations can then participate as one action which canbe mixed in with other staff operations, or other programmaticoperations to create a coordinated set of actions that are to occur forconfiguration or management of the environment. Two examples of suchstaff involvement are: a) authorization checkpoints that need to beinserted before certain programmatic actions are taken; or b) explicitmanual action, such as dealing with vendors or customers to activateadditional physical capacity.

Similar to the other operations where execution timing is captured,staff actions can have execution timing associated with length of timetaken to complete the manual task. These timings are captured and storedfor assessment of total execution time of the current workflow, alongwith use for future projections for validating quantitative managementgoals. One specific example is using information on how long staffauthorizations to proceed with recovery take, compared with the otherprogrammatic actions. In this example, future projections of aquantitative goal, such as that of Recovery Time Objective (RTO), caninclude a segment of time related to obtaining authorization that may bea substantial portion of the goal RTO.

Conditional Execution of Workflow Activivities

In accordance with an aspect of the present invention, the techniqueused to generate workflows and to pull in activities is based on theactual runtime characteristics that exist in the environment. There are‘conditional’ activities inserted which execute prior to an ‘action’activity to determine if the action activity is to be executed based oncurrent runtime conditions. For example, in some cases, workflow stepsare conditionally introduced based on triggers that test the state ofthe runtime or values of specific properties of resources. As a furtherexample, external monitors are captured as steps in the dynamicallygenerated workflow so that paths of execution can depend on the state ofresources in the workflow itself, or on the current state of theenvironment (STEP 912, FIG. 9). In one implementation, execution canalso depend on the current Pattern System Environment.

These external monitors are created dynamically, in one example, duringformation of workflows, and they are based on configuration informationrelated to resource relationships. The information about resourcerelationships can be implemented in a number of ways; however, asexample implementations, this information is described as pairingconstructs or the relationships are stored in files.

One example of using a monitor to execute an activity conditionallywould be as follows for a workflow for recovering a failed environmentinvolving many resources:

Continue processing after this activity only when composed state of DB2®is ‘Available’.

Workflows Viewable and Changeable

The workflows produced dynamically through one or more aspects of thepresent invention can be viewed and further modified prior to execution.The workflows are saved, and in one implementation, are presented in thecontext of the associated business application. Depending on theworkflow engine chosen, editing tools are commercially available to viewand modify these workflows. In one implementation, the workflows arebuilt using standard Business Process Execution Language (BPEL), and areconsumed by any BPEL compliant runtime. In addition, any tool thatallows viewing or editing of BPEL can be used to analyze the generatedBPEL.

Constructing More Complex Workflows using Simple Workflows

The workflows generated by the logic described herein can be furtherextended by combining multiple of the individual flows together into amore complex flow, connected together in one implementation withactivities that are staff type activities that can provide authorizationto continue to the next segment. The viewers and editors used to modifythe individual flows can be used to combine flows together, and to linkthem together in context by inserting additional activities.

Described in detail herein is a capability for dynamically generatingworkflows based on the current state of the environment.

One or more aspects of the present invention can be included in anarticle of manufacture (e.g., one or more computer program products)having, for instance, computer usable media. The media has therein, forinstance, computer readable program code means or logic (e.g.,instructions, code, commands, etc.) to provide and facilitate thecapabilities of the present invention. The article of manufacture can beincluded as a part of a computer system or sold separately.

One example of an article of manufacture or a computer program productincorporating one or more aspects of the present invention is describedwith reference to FIG. 11. A computer program product 1100 includes, forinstance, one or more computer usable media 1102 to store computerreadable program code means or logic 1104 thereon to provide andfacilitate one or more aspects of the present invention. The medium canbe an electronic, magnetic, optical, electromagnetic, infrared, orsemiconductor system (or apparatus or device) or a propagation medium.Examples of a computer readable medium include a semiconductor or solidstate memory, magnetic tape, a removable computer diskette, a randomaccess memory (RAM), a read-only memory (ROM), a rigid magnetic disk andan optical disk. Examples of optical disks include compact disk-readonly memory (CD-ROM), compact disk-read/write (CD-R/W) and DVD.

A sequence of program instructions or a logical assembly of one or moreinterrelated modules defined by one or more computer readable programcode means or logic direct the performance of one or more aspects of thepresent invention.

Advantageously, a capability is provided for dynamically andprogrammatically generating workflows for use in managing ITenvironments. The workflows reflect the current state of an environment,and may include programmatic operations, as well as manual operations.In one aspect, the workflow dynamically changes (e.g., conditionalexecution of activities) based on, for instance, the state of theresources or property values. Advantageously, in one aspect, theworkflows are transactional in scope.

Although various embodiments are described above, these are onlyexamples. For example, the processing environments described herein areonly examples of environments that may incorporate and use one or moreaspects of the present invention. Environments may include other typesof processing units or servers or the components in each processingenvironment may be different than described herein. Each processingenvironment may include additional, less and/or different componentsthan described herein. Further, the types of central processing unitsand/or operating systems or other types of components may be differentthan described herein. Again, these are only provided as examples.

Moreover, an environment may include an emulator (e.g., software orother emulation mechanisms), in which a particular architecture orsubset thereof is emulated. In such an environment, one or moreemulation functions of the emulator can implement one or more aspects ofthe present invention, even though a computer executing the emulator mayhave a different architecture than the capabilities being emulated. Asone example, in emulation mode, the specific instruction or operationbeing emulated is decoded, and an appropriate emulation function isbuilt to implement the individual instruction or operation.

In an emulation environment, a host computer includes, for instance, amemory to store instructions and data; an instruction fetch unit toobtain instructions from memory and to optionally, provide localbuffering for the obtained instruction; an instruction decode unit toreceive the instruction fetched and to determine the type ofinstructions that have been fetched; and an instruction execution unitto execute the instructions. Execution may include loading data into aregister for memory; storing data back to memory from a register; orperforming some type of arithmetic or logical operation, as determinedby the decode unit. In one example, each unit is implemented insoftware. For instance, the operations being performed by the units areimplemented as one or more subroutines within emulator software.

Further, a data processing system suitable for storing and/or executingprogram code is usable that includes at least one processor coupleddirectly or indirectly to memory elements through a system bus. Thememory elements include, for instance, local memory employed duringactual execution of the program code, bulk storage, and cache memorywhich provide temporary storage of at least some program code in orderto reduce the number of times code must be retrieved from bulk storageduring execution.

Input/Output or I/O devices (including, but not limited to, keyboards,displays, pointing devices, DASD, tape, CDs, DVDs, thumb drives andother memory media, etc.) can be coupled to the system either directlyor through intervening I/O controllers. Network adapters may also becoupled to the system to enable the data processing system to becomecoupled to other data processing systems or remote printers or storagedevices through intervening private or public networks. Modems, cablemodems, and Ethernet cards are just a few of the available types ofnetwork adapters.

Further, although the environments described herein are related to themanagement of availability of a customer's environment, one or moreaspects of the present invention may be used to manage aspects otherthan or in addition to availability. Further, one or more aspects of thepresent invention can be used in environments other than a businessresiliency environment.

Yet further, many examples are provided herein, and these examples maybe revised without departing from the spirit of the present invention.For example, in one embodiment, the description is described in terms ofavailability and recovery; however, other goals and/or objectives may bespecified in lieu of or in addition thereto. Additionally, the resourcesmay be other than IT resources. Further, there may be references toparticular products offered by International Business MachinesCorporation or other companies. These again are only offered asexamples, and other products may also be used. Additionally, althoughtables and databases are described herein, any suitable data structuremay be used. There are many other variations that can be included in thedescription described herein and all of these variations are considereda part of the claimed invention.

Further, for completeness in describing one example of an environment inwhich one or more aspects of the present invention may be utilized,certain components and/or information is described that is not neededfor one or more aspects of the present invention. These are not meant tolimit the aspects of the present invention in any way.

One or more aspects of the present invention can be provided, offered,deployed, managed, serviced, etc. by a service provider who offersmanagement of customer environments. For instance, the service providercan create, maintain, support, etc. computer code and/or a computerinfrastructure that performs one or more aspects of the presentinvention for one or more customers. In return, the service provider canreceive payment from the customer under a subscription and/or feeagreement, as examples. Additionally or alternatively, the serviceprovider can receive payment from the sale of advertising content to oneor more third parties.

In one aspect of the present invention, an application can be deployedfor performing one or more aspects of the present invention. As oneexample, the deploying of an application comprises providing computerinfrastructure operable to perform one or more aspects of the presentinvention.

As a further aspect of the present invention, a computing infrastructurecan be deployed comprising integrating computer readable code into acomputing system, in which the code in combination with the computingsystem is capable of performing one or more aspects of the presentinvention.

As yet a further aspect of the present invention, a process forintegrating computing infrastructure, comprising integrating computerreadable code into a computer system may be provided. The computersystem comprises a computer usable medium, in which the computer usablemedium comprises one or more aspects of the present invention. The codein combination with the computer system is capable of performing one ormore aspects of the present invention.

The capabilities of one or more aspects of the present invention can beimplemented in software, firmware, hardware, or some combinationthereof. At least one program storage device readable by a machineembodying at least one program of instructions executable by the machineto perform the capabilities of the present invention can be provided.

The flow diagrams depicted herein are just examples. There may be manyvariations to these diagrams or the steps (or operations) describedtherein without departing from the spirit of the invention. Forinstance, the steps may be performed in a differing order, or steps maybe added, deleted, or modified. All of these variations are considered apart of the claimed invention.

Although embodiments have been depicted and described in detail herein,it will be apparent to those skilled in the relevant art that variousmodifications, additions, substitutions and the like can be made withoutdeparting from the spirit of the invention and these are thereforeconsidered to be within the scope of the invention as defined in thefollowing claims.

1. A computer-implemented method comprising: determining that a workflowis to be created for a computing environment; and programmaticallycreating, based on a current state of the computing environment, theworkflow.
 2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein theprogrammatically creating comprises: determining whether an activity isto be conditionally executed; and including the activity in theworkflow, in response to the determining indicating that the activity isto be conditionally executed.
 3. The computer-implemented method ofclaim 1, wherein the workflow comprises one of a preparatory workflow, arecovery workflow, an undo workflow and a delta workflow.
 4. Thecomputer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the programmaticallycreating is further based on observed historical information of thecomputing environment.
 5. The computer-implemented method of claim 1,further comprising using the workflow to manage one or more aspects ofthe computing environment.
 6. The computer-implemented method of claim1, wherein the workflow is created as a transaction.
 7. Thecomputer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the workflow is otherthan an undo workflow, and wherein the method further comprisesprogrammatically creating an undo workflow to correspond to theworkflow.
 8. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein theprogrammatically creating comprises inserting into the workflow one ormore activities to be performed.
 9. The computer-implemented method ofclaim 8, further comprising: conditionally executing at least oneactivity of the workflow; and monitoring completion status of the atleast one executed activity.
 10. The computer-implemented method ofclaim 8, wherein the one or more activities include at least one of oneor more programmatic operations or one or more operations to beperformed manually.
 11. The computer-implemented method of claim 10,further comprising obtaining an indication of an amount of time used toperform an activity of the one or more activities.
 12. A systemcomprising: a processing component to determine that a workflow is to becreated for a computing environment; and a processing component toprogrammatically create, based on a current state of the computingenvironment, the workflow.
 13. The system of claim 12, wherein theprogrammatically creating is further based on observed historicalinformation of the computing environment.
 14. The system of claim 12,wherein the workflow is created as a transaction.
 15. The system ofclaim 12, further comprising: at least one processing component toconditionally execute at least one activity of the workflow and tomonitor completion status of the at least one executed activity.
 16. Anarticle of manufacture comprising: at least one computer usable mediumhaving computer readable program code logic when executing performingthe following: determining that a workflow is to be created for acomputing environment; and programmatically creating, based on a currentstate of the computing environment, the workflow.
 17. The article ofmanufacture of claim 16, wherein the programmatically creating isfurther based on observed historical information of the computingenvironment.
 18. The article of manufacture of claim 16, furthercomprising using the workflow to manage one or more aspects of thecomputing environment.
 19. The article of manufacture of claim 16,wherein the workflow is other than an undo workflow, and wherein themethod further comprises programmatically creating an undo workflow tocorrespond to the workflow.
 20. The article of manufacture of claim 16,further comprising: conditionally executing at least one activity of theworkflow; and monitoring completion status of the at least one executedactivity.